Pilot
by Vecturist
Summary: "Open the pod bay doors HAL"  Sometimes Ancient tech like Sheppard a little too much.


_She could feel him the moment he and the other set foot aboard her. The other was of no consequence, but He was someone she had been waiting for, someone to wield her like the weapon she was, to cut down the old enemy that surged up time and time again while she simply sat by, useless. She reached out to the dark-haired one; excited that he responded to her presence, for she had feared too much time had passed._

"_Pilot. Stay. Fight," she sent. He appeared most receptive to the term pilot, but the other two works did not provoke as positive a response. _

ooooooooooooooooooooooo

"McKay, see if you can access any files and logs you can get – I'll give you an hour or two. I'm going to take a quick look around. I want to explore the ship, but something doesn't feel quite right. The Daedalus will be arriving in Atlantis in a couple days, and we can have Caldwell tow her back to one of the piers then," ordered Colonel Sheppard, agitated as he glanced at the small hallway leading from the docking station.

"What feeling? Like someone walked over your grave? Now, that's a regular occurrence, I'm sure," McKay complained as he began connecting his laptop.

"She's been floating in space for thousands of years. What's another week at the most? Plus, you'll have access to all your gear and your minions," he snapped, seeing McKay ready to object and attempting to stem it off quickly.

"Fine, but you just volunteered your services and any other ATA-gene pilot," he said. Sheppard nodded once and headed down the corridor, scowling when he heard McKay mutter "sucker."

_As her new pilot…yes, he would be her pilot. Split from his companion, she put her plan into motion, altering environmental controls and setting off multiple electrical discharges along her hallways. She would demonstrate what he could do, what they could be together._

ooooooooooooooooooooooo

"Open the pod bay doors, HAL," Sheppard snarled, shaking the fogginess from his head. He half remembered wandering off, ambling down corridor after corridor. It wasn't until he stepped into this room and the door snapped shut behind him that he realized his wandering hadn't been aimless after all, that the ship—sounding a little like a woman but in a very dream-like kind of way—was talking to him in his head.

More than a little freaked out, he slammed three crystals into slots in quick succession. The answering shower of sparks from the door controls that had him flinching back was an angry enough response to his demand. Mumbling a curse in retort, he moved over to the door to see if his efforts had at least unlocked the seal. The heat of the surface bled through his shirt and t-shirt as he braced himself to pry it open, but he had to concede defeat after a few minutes when the heat became too much. It was also apparent the door wasn't going to open without a lot more force – like that of Ronon's and a couple teams of marines. After a brief pause, he checked his palms and fingertips, relieved to see no burns. He thought about grabbing some gauze tape out of his tac-vest and wrapping his fingers for another try but discarded that idea quickly.

"_Pilot. Stay. Fight," _she repeated, attempting to make him see her point.

"You'll just up the temperature or throw something else at me," he growled as he moved toward the center of the room and the main console, trying to ignore the large control-type chair. "Can't damage your pilot, but you definitely want to keep him. You could have asked first, not that I would have changed my mind." He scanned the computer console in front of him. "Maybe I should just call you Christine," he added as he noted readings of sub-zero temperatures and low oxygen levels everywhere throughout the ship except in the small command center. He was trapped. Even if he managed to make it out, he was doubtful he'd be able to successfully tolerate the current conditions long enough to make it to the puddle jumper, at least not without serious consequences to his health, and maybe sanity. And that was assuming that 'Christine' decided to keep the status quo and not throw in any nasty surprises, and he wouldn't put that past her. She had effectively herded him into the main control center and McKay… well, she hadn't liked McKay.

McKay. Crap. He'd forgotten about his teammate until that moment. He reached for his LSD and cursed when his fingers came up empty. He had no idea at what point he'd lost the device in all of his wandering. Scanning through the bank of readouts on the display in front of him again, as far as he could tell, he was the only life-sign on board, which meant either McKay had made it back to the puddle jumper or… he didn't want to think about the alternative.

"McKay," Sheppard barked as he slapped at his radio, after a taking a deep breath. "Where are you? Somehow I've been led into the what looks like the command center of this ship…."

"Sheppard, now you contact me," McKay interrupted, and Sheppard's legs wobbled in relief. McKay was alive. "You get led into the heart of things, while this ship of yours decides to chase me off. I thought I was going to die of hypothermia or be electrocuted or some other hideous death. Has she rolled over and presented her belly for scratching for you yet?"

"More like I'm the one on a leash, or maybe within an electric fence," Sheppard commented dryly as the control panel he was working at suddenly shocked him. "I don't think Christine likes you, or is going to willingly let me go."

"Christine? You naming ships after ex-girlfriends?"

"No, McKay. Didn't you hear what I just said? Christine, like the Stephen King novel. The ship's more than a tad obsessive. She's been whispering in my mind since we got on board and she's getting pretty insistent," Sheppard broke off, trying to ignore the building headache. "I've already tried rearranging the door crystals and a couple of other things, but Christine here wasn't too thrilled."

"The ship must have latched onto your magic ATA gene while ignoring mine. From what I gathered before 'Christine' tried to kill me, the Ancients built the ship as some sort of special ops strike vessel to hunt down and take out the Wraith. Something you would normally be drooling all over," McKay explained with a note of bitterness in his voice.

"Under normal circumstances, McKay, emphasis on normal. Getting kidnapped by a psychotic ship with a one-track mind is kind of dampening my enthusiasm. Help get me out of here, and then I can rhapsodize about how cool this ship is, particularly from one of the piers in Atlantis."

"You know we're not going to be able to keep this ship. Something always happens. I'm sure that Radek started the betting pool as soon as Lorne and his team began their reports."

"Focus, McKay. I'd like to get out of here sometime this year."

"You really haven't put your feet up and settled in, have you, Sheppard?"

"She'd like that and she's getting louder and more insistent as we sit here and chat."

"It's got to be killing you to sit in that cockpit and know you can't do anything."

"Yes, but something tells me that would be a bad idea. The set of images I just received from Christine, when you mentioned the Wraith, while impressive, are also extremely disturbing. This ship's ready to take on an entire Wraith armada, no questions asked, only she needs a pilot. And she thinks that pilot is yours truly."

For the next hour, Sheppard tried everything McKay suggested, enduring electrical shocks and hot consoles as he searched for a way to release the door or take the ship's personality offline. The first couple attempts were met with mild displeasure, but Christine began to get increasingly irritated and adamant that he was her pilot. Sheppard's mild headache blossomed into what he suspected a full-blown migraine felt like, and for a moment his mental defenses wavered.

_ It was the moment she needed as she merged with her pilot. She was still puzzled by his reluctance to join but thought his stubbornness was a good indicator of strength. He had witnessed the devastation of the Wraith, even felt helpless and frustrated at times; now the two of them would avenge the deaths of so many. She set the small craft docked to her adrift, cutting off communications between her pilot and its occupant. For a long moment, she could still sense her pilot's hesitation, like a child dipping a careful toe in a river, before he gleefully leapt in, already helping plot the course to the nearest hiveship. _

ooooooooooooooooooooo

Sheppard slowly surfaced to consciousness, feeling like a wide-awake drunk and with the knowledge that that feeling could only come from anesthesia or an extended period of sedation. He blinked his eyes a few times to clear the inevitable gummy film and wondered if fully waking was worth the effort. A sudden, loud, "he's awake," made that a moot point.

"Nice to see you, McKay," Sheppard rasped. As if on cue, Teyla appeared with a glass of water and a straw, and he drank the contents down readily while he tried to piece together why he had landed in the infirmary yet again. He remembered a piercing headache, and worrying about a ship and Atlantis, then a sudden sense of bloodthirsty euphoria. He was invincible, roaming Pegasus…

As if reading his thoughts, McKay began. "That ship of yours took you for a little adventure. Apparently, the two of you decided to single-handedly destroy a few Wraith hiveships until they decided to hunt the hunter. You're lucky the Daedalus was searching for you and managed to beam you out at the last second."

"Blew up four hiveships, though," Ronon interrupted from his corner of the room, taking advantage of Rodney's 'lecture mode' to snag something off his tray.

"Hey," Rodney made a futile grab for his muffin, giving Ronon a dirty look, who merely smiled back. Sheppard smiled at the exchange, then grimaced at the nasal canula and the IV. "I guess that means you haven't killed off that many brain cells with your latest adventure," Rodney continued. "Your brains were scrambled worse than the eggs in the cafeteria."

"Rodney's exaggerating," Keller scolded, swooping into the room and beginning a check of Sheppard's vitals. "Your brain and nervous system were a bit of a mess, though. There were extremely high levels of both endorphins and adrenaline in your bloodstream, and you had increased levels of serotonin uptake. You were basically a bloodthirsty warrior getting high off the experience. Fighting was all you could think about, and the rush would get stronger with each incursion, overriding any other concerns, which might also explain why you were severely dehydrated," Keller added. "The IV has to stay in a little longer, Colonel."

"Sounds like part of a plot from one of those crazy movies you and the marines like – lone avenger with his impossibly kick-ass jet," McKay interjected.

"Did you just refer to me as Batman?" Sheppard couldn't help teasing. McKay treated him to one of his full-on glares for that comment. Ronon chuckled, watching McKay get wound up. Teyla simply rolled her eyes.

"Seriously, though, that ship was never designed for a single pilot. I finally –okay, Radek managed to dig up the appropriate entry in the Ancient database. Why the Ancients had to bury the entries for things that they screwed up and that now come back to bite us in the ass, I don't know, but this program was a failure. They wanted a smart warship, capable of seeking out threats and adapting to changes in battle conditions, but ultimately going for the kill at all costs. It needed a human brain for strategy and other subtleties, but human beings are fallible, which explains the interface. Something to keep the crew, how shall we say, motivated? Several minds would have kept the AI occupied, provided some measure of balance, and allowed for basic maintenance of the ship. The Ancient council, however, at some point got a little uncomfortable with sending people on what largely amounted to kamikaze missions and attempted to recall a couple of the crews, probably when they realized they were losing the war with the Wraith. Most of the crews didn't bother to respond. Those they could pick up had a variety of psychological issues after being exposed to that environment. As a single individual, you got the brunt of an AI spoiling for war that had been alone for a very long time."

"Racehorses just want to run, McKay. They'll even race on a broken leg," Sheppard commented, somewhat wistfully. McKay looked like he was going to interrupt, but held his tongue. "It was exhilarating to fly her. I've never flown anything so responsive, so single-minded, with such deadly elegance."

"You do realize most of that was chemically induced, right?"

"I'm still a pilot," Sheppard explained, and then yawned, ruining the rest of his response.

"By the way, Miko won the pool on how long we'd be able to keep the ship. I think Radek's corrupting her," McKay couldn't resist adding.

"We will be by later, Colonel," Teyla said. We are glad you are back safe."

As he settled back in bed, Sheppard smiled, watching them wave and file out of the infirmary. He might feel most at home in the sky, but he was grateful for a team that kept him grounded.


End file.
